Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Hempstead,
New York – The set at Hofstra University was sky blue, oval-shaped,
with little bleachers around its perimeter where 80 undecided New
Yorkers sat with skepticism written all over their faces, and little
slit windows cut in its rear walls for cameras.

You
couldn't help thinking they looked like the kind of surveillance
windows you see in discount stores, police stations...

A
kid named Epstein led off when the moderator allowed him to ask Gov.
Mitt Romney if he agreed with his college professors that if and when
he graduates, there probably won't be a job waiting for him.

He
wanted to know how to reassure his parents. He sounded as scared as
the grown-ups around him looked.

The
Governor began a rambling, unresponsive rejoinder that took him from
peak to peak in the middle of nowhere, until he finally said he
wanted to keep Pell Grants and student loans.

When
President Obama got his time to respond, the Governor cut him off,
argued with the moderator, a zoftig middle-aged New Yorker named
Candace, and greatly delayed the President's reply.

Perched on bar stools with end tables by their sides, the two debaters looked like punchy late-night drunks staggering off tavern stools to stand in a belligerent stance in the middle of the barroom floor, then stalk away when their sound byte was done. They
got down to taxes, and President Obama said, “I said I would cut
taxes for middle class people, and that's what I've done.” Pan to a close-up, the Governor in soft focus in the background.He said
the average middle-class family now pays about $3,600 less in taxes
each year. When it comes to small business, he said, he has cut taxes
18 times.

For
the first $250,000 in income, there will be no change in a second
Obama Administration.

“Governor
Romney's allies in Congress have held the 98 percent hostage.”

Jobs?

If
elected, said Governor Romney, he will make it his first act to label
China a “currency manipulator,” and he will impose tariffs
against Chinese imports to punish the manufacturers.

“I
spent my life in the private sector, not in government,” he said,
repeatedly.

He
added that most of the people he knows who meet payrolls are
reluctant to add jobs because they have no idea what Obamacare will
do to their bottom line if, and when it's implemented.

President
Obama replied that the companies Mr. Romney developed while he was
with Bain Capital, “invested in what we call the pioneers of
outsourcing.” He added that “There are some jobs that won't come
back.” He wants to train people for the high-tech jobs of the
future, the kind that call for highly skilled, really smart people.

His
take: “There's a fundamentally different vision of how we will move
our country forward.”

And
then he reminded the audience of Governor Romney's recent remark to
very wealthy campaign contributors at a private event in Boca Raton
when he said 47 percent of the nation sees themselves as “victims,”
people who will vote for the President, no matter what.

The
next debate will take place there in that affluent seaside Florida
community on Monday, to be held at a university campus.